by Peter David
“You kill him,” said Gwen slowly, “and Arthur will hunt you down and kill you.”
“Are you sure?” said Morgan quietly. “My understanding is that there’s no love lost between Arthur and your former beau. Are you willing to gamble Lance’s life that that threat will keep me in line—particularly since I believe it to be without substance?”
They stood there for a long moment, neither moving, neither willing to bend an inch in will or spirit. Then Morgan said, “Lance has spoken of you recently. I must say he’s taking being chained up very well.” Morgan walked back into the room with a jaunty little bounce to her step. “When I told him I’d be seeing you, he asked me to ask you for forgiveness. If you must know, his exact words were, ‘Tell her not to worry about me. Whatever happens, I deserve it. But she won’t care anyway, because she doesn’t love me.’”
“He’s right about that,” Gwen said, trying to sound harsh. “I ... I don’t love him. Not anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did.”
“Well then,” Morgan shrugged, “it should be simple for you. If you feel absolutely nothing for him, the choice is as good as made.”
“You don’t have to love someone not to want to see them killed.”
“I do,” replied Morgan. “And not even then. Perhaps we’re more alike than you would think, my little queen. So ... what will it be?”
Gwen’s features crumbled momentarily, but she managed to quickly compose herself. “Look, Morgan,” she said, trying to sound reasonable, “even if I waited until after Arthur and I had ... you know ... and tried to get away with his sword, it would never work. He’s so attuned to it that the moment I’d lay a finger on Excalibur he’d snap awake and want to know what the hell I was doing.”
Morgan regarded her, her eyebrows arched, and said, “You may be right, my love. Very well then. I believe we can hit upon a compromise, if you are amenable. Here is what I propose.”
MODRED STARED AT Lance in grim amusement. Lance, hanging from the chains, didn’t notice him. Both of them sensed Morgan’s nearness at the same time and turned to look at her as she swept in.
“Trust me on this,” Moe said sarcastically to his mother, while indicating Lance. “Next time, wallpaper instead.”
“Wait outside,” Morgan told him. “Plans are in motion. I’ll fill you in shortly.”
Modred nodded and exited the dungeon, while Lance fought to keep his head raised and his vision focused on Morgan.
Morgan smiled at him. Lance pulled against his chains, then, his hands flexing frantically as he said, “Morgan! Oh, please, no, not again!”
She nodded slowly, and reached behind her back as she said, “I just saw a friend of yours.”
“Friend?”
“Yes. Barely an hour ago.” Her hand made some motion and her black gown dropped to the floor. She stood naked before him. “Your friend was very concerned about you.”
“Morgan, please! I’m telling you, I can’t ...”
She pressed her body against his. The smell of her was intoxicating, and he trembled even as, much to his shock, he felt himself becoming aroused.
“Didn’t think you could again, eh?” said Morgan, nibbling at the base of his neck. “You might be interested to know, your friend wants me to let you go.”
Lance moaned. “No! Please don’t! Please don’t let me go. Morgan, please ...”
“Hush, my love.” She placed a finger against his lips. “No need to worry. Morgan is going to take care of everything.” She ran her fingers along the length of his body, toward his groin. “Everything ...” she said languorously.
YE OLDE SOUND BITE
“Over the months Arthur’s prevailing attitude of ‘Don’t bother me with countless facts, they only get in the way of making decisions’ has become fashionable. Arthur has rapidly become a candidate with broad appeal. His no-nonsense attitude is refreshing, and his self-possession has come across superbly both in person and on camera. Is that how you see it, Amanda?”
“Frankly, Jimmy, I couldn’t disagree more. I think Arthur Penn’s candidacy is a culmination of everything that’s wrong with politics, not only in New York, but in general in our country. Simple, facile statements are being presented as if they were intelligent policy, and the voters are eating it up ... not because it would be of any long-term benefit, but because it’s simplistic enough for them to wrap themselves around. The little man loves Arthur Penn because Penn uses enough one-syllable words.”
“So you’re saying he doesn’t have a hope of getting your vote, Amanda?”
“Oh, hell no, I’m voting for him. He’s totally hot.”
“I have to agree, Amanda. Frankly, I’m almost tempted to turn gay for him. This has been Punch/Counter-Punch. Back to you, Roger...”
CHAPTRE
THE SIXTEENTH
THE RENOVATED STOREFRONT had a huge banner draped across it, reading ARTHUR PENN FOR MAYOR HEADQUARTERS. It was situated several blocks away from Arthur’s main office in the Camelot Building. The move had been made due to space needs, not to mention higher visibility. Arthur and company now had 1,200 square feet, and although at first that seemed like a staggeringly large amount of room, it had filled up pretty quickly.
It was eight in the morning, a faint nip from the night fading in the air, and Arthur sat hunched with Ronnie Cordoba, a list of meetings and appearances between them. All around them, plastered on the walls, were the campaign posters that featured his picture and the tagline, Arthur Penn: Common Sense. Arthur was shaking his head in despair. “Are these all really necessary, Ronnie?” he was asking. “Why can’t I just continue as I have been?”
“Because you need more concentrated media exposure,” Ronnie said. He leaned back in the creaking wooden chair. “Your earlier tactics were fine, Arthur, in terms of basic introduction. But the Democratic and Republican primaries are just around the corner, and the election’s only two months after that. We’re just kicking into high gear now.”
“Just kicking into high gear? Ronnie, look at this schedule.” He slapped the piece of paper. “Appearing in front of groups I’ve never heard of to discuss subjects I know nothing about.” His collar was unbuttoned, his tie draped over the chair nearby. They’d been working practically the entire night and the strain was beginning to show.
“It would help if you had a speech writer and standardized talks,” said Ronnie reasonably.
Arthur stood and stretched his arms, painfully trying to work the kinks out of his shoulders. “Now, we’ve been all through this. I don’t want to hire somebody to write for me what I’m going to say.”
“It enables you to get your message across consistently by repeating it.”
“My message is honesty and integrity. If I simply adhere to both, then that assures my message can’t go astray.”
“But ... Arthur, everyone else works off prepared text!” complained Ronnie.
“Yes, and they all sound homogenized—that’s the word, isn’t it? Gwen used it the other day. Every single word of every speech, carefully considered, studied, gone over and weighed, drained of any possible juice, any possible chance of putting a nose out of joint here or costing a vote there. A prepared text is a sign of an unprepared soul.”
Ron sighed, knowing better than to argue with Arthur when he was like this, which was pretty much all the time. He leaned back, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Thanks for the homily, Arthur. I’ll treasure it always. By the way, speaking of Gwen, where is she? She’s been missing in action. This is the wrong time for her to turn into vapor mist on us.”
Arthur shrugged. “She’s had something on her mind the past few days. I’ve tried not to pressure her about it. I’ve discovered with women that it’s not a good idea to try to make them talk when they don’t want to. They’ll generally come around.”
Merlin walked in, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. “Morning all,” he said. “Percival’s right behind me—he’s stopping to get a bagel.” He shook his head. “Fascinating th
ing, a bagel. Not quite a donut, but not quite a muffin. Not quite anything, and yet it’s everything. All things to all people. It’s the brunch of baked goods.”
“Merlin, good God, it’s too early to wax philosophical, okay? And what do your folks think about your involvement in politics?” asked Ronnie. “I mean, are they going to make you cut back on your time here when school starts?”
Merlin glanced at Ronnie, then back at Arthur. “Oh. That’s right. We haven’t told him, have we?”
Ronnie glanced around curiously. “Told me what?”
“About Merlin,” said Arthur. “He’s lived—”
“Alone,” said Merlin quickly. “Alone, for quite some time. Both parents died, very suddenly.”
“I’m sorry,” Ronnie said, sounding very upset that he’d brought it up. “What happened?”
Arthur’s mind raced and, for reasons surpassing understanding, he said, “A tragic ... pogo stick accident.”
This brought a very befuddled stare from Ronnie. “Pogo stick ... accident?”
Arthur looked to Merlin for help. He had just taken a feeble attempt at an untruth, and it had gone about as well as one could expect from an insufferably honest man. Merlin quickly stepped in. “Yes, it was ... tragic. They were bouncing on them, and then the things just. . . well, just flew apart. Became embedded in ...” He managed to put across a shudder. “Well ... it wasn’t a pretty sight.”
“I would think not. Merlin, do the authorities know? That you’re living on your own, I mean. You’re underage; I doubt they’d approve.”
“I don’t see that it’s their business.”
“Whether you think it is or not, Merlin, doesn’t change the fact that this could hurt us.” Ronnie looked to Arthur for support on his position. “Arthur, this is an unsupervised minor who’s practically part of the campaign.”
“Practically?” sniffed Merlin. “Without me you’d all be peddling nonworking watches on Thirty-fourth and Broadway.”
“And if the press pick up on it, there could be lots of difficult questions,” Ronnie continued as if Merlin hadn’t spoken. “We can’t take any sort of risk of endangering a minor or ...”
“I’d be lost without him,” said Arthur simply.
“Besides, don’t get yourself in an uproar, Ronnie,” said Merlin. “I’m living with someone now. Percival’s moved in with me.”
“Ah!” Ronnie let out a sigh of relief. “Well, I wish you’d said so in the first place. Would have spared me a few bad minutes there. So where’s this place of yours?”
“On the Island.”
“Oh,” said Ronnie, nodding in understanding. “Long Island? Staten Island?”
“Bermuda, actually.”
Arthur prayed that Ronnie wouldn’t pursue the line of inquiry, and was silently relieved when Percival walked in carrying a small brown bag. “Morning, everyone.” He cocked his head. “Ronnie, you okay? You look pale.”
“Me? Naaah,” said Ronnie, smiling raggedly. “Merlin, he was just kidding around with me, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see. You know, Ronnie,” Percival said solicitously, “you’ve been workin’ real hard. You should come out to Bermuda. Get some rest.”
Ronnie nodded slowly, then leaned over the agenda for the day. Ooookay. Arthur, most of this stuff is routine. Grab a couple of hours sleep, first off. Then you’ve got a women’s group in the morning, senior citizens lunch, a citizen’s watch group in the early afternoon, and then you’re meeting with a group of Jewish community leaders in the late afternoon. Then we’ve got the fund-raiser tonight—”
“Oh, right!” Arthur said briskly, obviously glad to be reminded. “I’m very upset about that, and I’m not going.”
Merlin turned in surprise. “What are you talking about? Our money is starting to run low.”
“There are limits as to what I will do, Merlin. Gwen told me about this dinner tonight. She said I’d have to wear a monkey suit. Now if you think for one minute I’m going to dress like an ape simply to get votes, then, my little wizard, you have quite another think coming.”
He sat there, arms folded resolutely, eyes smoldering. Ronnie and Percival looked at each other, trying not to snicker. Merlin slowly shook his head. “Someone is going to have to talk to you, long and hard, about slang,” he said.
THE BANQUET HALL was filled with men and women dressed formally, seated at large round tables, finishing their Chicken Kiev and assorted vegetables. And although the conversation at the tables was lively, attention kept returning to the long dais at the front of the room, where Arthur, Gwen, Percival, and several known and respected celebrities in New York were seated. It was their first lengthy meeting, and they found themselves, as always, charmed by Arthur’s openness and frank manner of discussing issues.
Still, Arthur’s attention kept turning to the extremely reserved Gwen sitting next to him. He leaned over at one point, making sure that the microphone wasn’t turned on, and whispered, “Do you want to discuss it?”
“What?” She looked at him blankly. She was wearing a scoop-necked blue chiffon dress, and looked ravishing ... and tragic.
“It. Whatever is on your mind,” he said.
She looked down. “Oh.”
“Well? What in the name of Uther is bothering you?”
Shifting in her seat, Gwen said, “Nothing.”
He fiddled with his butter knife. “The past days it seems, whenever I ask you a question, I just get a one-word answer. Have you noticed?”
“Really?” she said.
Arthur shook his head and dropped the conversation before it had really had a chance to get going.
Merlin was seated at a table close to the front. Arthur had wanted him to be at the dais, but Merlin had demurred, observing that they didn’t want or need endless speculation as to who the young boy seated with all the dignitaries was.
Seated in the middle was a former head of the United Nations General Assembly—a distinguished-looking man with graying temples, a bald head gleaming so brightly that some thought he had polished it with a chamois, and an avuncular manner that hid a spine of iron. He stood and rapped his fork briskly on the side of his glass. Slowly, conversation throughout the room quieted, while in the back of the room TV news cameras focused.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for coming this evening,” he said in a deeply timbered voice that carried a vague, middle-European accent. “I hope that you all enjoyed your dinners—usually these things seem to have meals made from Styrofoam.” The guests laughed in agreement. “However, trust our host to be more concerned about the welfare of his patrons than that. As have many of you, I have been fascinated by Mr. Penn’s rapid rise to public awareness in the past months. As have you, I have found myself impressed by his straightforward thinking, his unflinching way of addressing any problem. While other politicians seem to delight in straddling both sides of the fence, Arthur Penn is unafraid to speak his mind. To those people who agree with him, he is a sound ally. To those who disagree with him—well they respect him nevertheless and know, at least, that if Arthur Penn tells them something, it comes from the heart, and it’s not going to be changed to cater to whims or political expediencies.
“Let me give you a little background on the Independent candidate for mayor of New York City ...”
As he spoke, the waiters in the room, who had been scattered at random points throughout, slowly began to work their way forward.
Merlin felt a faint warning. He wasn’t sure what it was—some bothersome feeling in the back of his head, like an angry gnat, letting him know that something was not quite right. He looked around his table. The eleven other people seated with him seemed harmless enough, attentive enough. He looked at the other tables, but saw no cause there for alarm. So what was it? Where was it?
I have not, thought Merlin, lived this long without learning to trust to my instincts. He wished he could signal Percival somehow that there was danger present; Arthur would have no greater guardian if t
here was some sort of strike intended at him.
A movement caught the corner of his eye. One of the waiters had an odd look on his face, a look of great intent. Merlin pursed his lips. He looked around and saw a half-dozen other waiters, all with the same determined expression. No, something was definitely not right. Merlin quietly slid a heavy glass dish off the table. It had been filled with slices of raw vegetables, but was now empty. Fortunately, nearly everyone in this century seemed to be on a diet. He reached into the pocket of his black jacket—his monkey suit jacket, he thought grimly—and pulled out a small flask with blue liquid inside. With one small hand he uncorked it and poured the liquid into the dish. It spread rapidly, like a thing alive, coating the surface with blue. Moments later he held the dish up to his eye, peering through the blue filter of the liquid.
He gasped as he looked at the waiter nearby.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, I give to you, Arthur Penn!”
Merlin’s head snapped around. Arthur had risen behind the dais and was smiling out at his supporters. He started to stand, to shout out to Arthur exactly what was surrounding them. Then he slowly sat again, unsure of how to warn Arthur without setting off a general panic. Or how not to sound insane. He tried to signal to Percival, but the Grail knight was looking at Arthur, not noticing the frustrated mage at all.
Arthur leaned forward and said, “My friends ...”
And that was when all hell broke loose.
JUST AS ARTHUR started to speak, there was a low moan from his left. He looked around in time to see Gwen, hand on forehead, eyes closed in a swoon, topple over backward.
“Gwen!” he shouted, and immediately moved to her.
At the end of the table a noted attorney asked loudly, “Is there a doctor here?” prompting a number of people to glance at their watches and wonder if this might not be a good time to leave.
Arthur knelt at Gwen’s side, having already dipped a napkin into a glass of ice water. He stroked it across her face, saying urgently, “Gwen? Gwen, what’s wrong?” She opened her eyes. He saw no illness in them. Only fear.